16 comments:

Wouldn't forcing him to put up "Nietzsche is dead. -God" be just as unimaginative as forcing the prof. to remove the quote? For one, that quote has been around for many years.

Also, Nietzsche clearly is not dead, at least if interest in his work is any indication.

Of course you're only joking in your suggestion, but the serious issue seems to be why students are so offended in the first place. Imagine how offended they'd be if they had read similarly inflammatory quotes by Voltaire, Hume, Marx, Mill, Ayer, and others! Maybe the answer is to push for a better public understanding of philosophy. That way people won't be so scared of being confronted with a mean, nasty philosopher's quote.

I happen to think that, short of something pornographic or racist, a teacher can put whatever the heck they want to on a classroom door.

I have heard of rules about the extent to which teachers are permitted to indicate their own political views and candidate support to students. It is quite true that teachers can waste class time on political advocacy (you can always waste class time talking about pro sports), but rules from the administration about that sort of thing is not good. Mere potential to offend is not sufficient reason to censor free classroom expression.

I don't advocate strongly for my own views in class, but if I advocated for Christianity at the secular community college I work for, I would be more likely to be slapped down than if I were to advocate strongly for atheism, which many college teachers do without any complaints being made about them.

I do think students should be fairly treated with respect to their freedom to express their own opinion.

Nietzsche's aim as a moral philosopher was to set right humanity's false conception of morality. We can distinguish conventional morality, which Nietzsche criticizes, from Nietzsche positive moral vision for humanity. Rather than rejecting morality completely, Nietzsche rejected what passes for morality in the 19th century, and attached positive value to that which produces human flourishing. To figure out what Nietzsche actually said about morality, you could start by reading the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy entry on his moral philosophy.

But, RD, as with most everything I've noticed from you, your assertion here is seen to be incoherent upon examination.

A morality that is not transcenrant and objective [as we use that word] is no morality at all. A morality which gets its "truth" -- and it *oughtness* -- from our approval of it, is no morality at all.

So, how is that positive model for human flourishing actually working out? I mean, even aside from the horrors of the 20th century, which directly followed from it?

It would seem to me that a *true* positive model for human flourishing would not result in national, social, nor civilizational suicide. Yet, all three are what is happening.

RD you are spot on and coherent. Ilion has his knickers in a twist. He asserts '"would not Nietzsche agree that there are no such thing as "right" and "wrong?"' You point out that Nietzsche is most unlikely to agree to any such thing. Ilion responds with an insult and then a criticism of Nietzsche. Whatever you may think of this criticism, it is irrelevant to your point which is about what Nietsche said not about whether it was right.

Maybe there is some sort of freedom of speech issue, but I'm not sure since his office is likely state property. I can put whatever sign I want up but I can't put whatever sign I want up in someone else’s building.

Freedom of religion? Well I suppose that since the Supreme Court has botched what a “religion” is and said atheism is a religion that may fly. Of course, the real first amendment would be seen as discriminatory by some since it protected the free exercise of religion but did not protect the free exercise of atheism and any other “isms.” But hey our Supreme Court will correct that for us and simply read those isms in. That way the first amendment will say what our current culture thinks it should say. Isn’t that nice?

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About Me

I am the author of C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason, published by Inter-Varsity Press. I received a Ph.D in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989.